I should’ve known. I should’ve known once I graduated college, with a degree in English Literature and a minor in Classics, the world of today had nothing to offer me – in terms of employment.
Not that there weren’t jobs that I could do that held my interest, but I never got hired. Instead, these people would tell me to keep doing what I was doing. “And what is that?” I asked. “Keep following your dreams.” Hardly a practical approach to that job, I thought. “Sure. And when will they ripen? In the meantime, I do need some money.” But they seldom provided a satisfactory response to that question.
Frustrated, I posed the question to an employment agency, and received this most honest response to my question. But even though I posed the question, I had no idea how to assimilate the response into my life in any beneficial way.
Instead, I simply continued doing the things I loved – Dance, Writing and Painting – and skirted the edge of society, with a total indifference to money, and a gross inability (or perhaps a secret desire) to sell myself in any practical manner. (I think it is the latter. I am merely appeasing and flattering myself, to think otherwise, or that it was some unconscious desire.)
I managed to survive. But I also struggled. However, I would not relinquish my passions to the subservience of routine and boredom. I had my limits. I needed room to breathe, so I worked as little as possible.
The agency is non-existent today. It was called Manpower. I sent an email to them, and I got a swift response from a man there.
“What jobs are there for Idealists?”
“None,” he said.
